Morning Wire - "Run Hide Fight: Infidels" Director Kyle Rankin On Hollywood, ISIS & Independent Film

Episode Date: September 26, 2026

Director and writer Kyle Rankin joins John Bickley and Georgia Howe to discuss his new Daily Wire film, Run Hide Fight: Infidels, an action thriller starring Jonathan Majors about an ISIS terror group that takes over an American college campus. Rankin discusses the film’s controversial subject matter, the challenges of filming on a college campus, potential backlash from the left, working with major Hollywood stars, and why he believes independent productions represent the future of filmmaking. Plus, Rankin reflects on his career, from his first big break with Shia LaBeouf to returning to the franchise that launched Daily Wire’s film division. Get the facts first with Morning Wire.Start your morning with 15 minutes of what matters — and none of what doesn’t. Welcome to Morning Wire.🔔 Subscribe and catch new episodes every day at 3:30 AM CT🚨 Tired of the ads? Join DailyWire+ today and watch Morning Wire, along with all of our live news coverage, ad-free: https://bit.ly/3RzxiDM- - -Ep. 3111- - -Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3- - -Today's Sponsors:Alliance Defending Freedom - Visit https://JoinADF.com/WIRE or text WIRE to 83848 to make TWICE the impact for freedom today.ShipStation - ShipStation brings orders into one place and automatically compares carrier rates in real time, helping businesses stay organized and save when volume spikes. Get ahead of it today with ShipStation, and get 60 days free at https://ShipStation.com, with code wire.- - -This video includes information, descriptions, video, and images meant to give important context to viewers. By including this context, the overlaid commentary, criticism, and analysis is able to serve the public's interest in the discussed subject matter. Pairing the appropriate context with the included commentary allows the video to: (i) educate viewers; and (ii) document newsworthy events or other matters of public interest. To the greatest extent possible, the included commentary is intended to: (a) accurately identify the involved parties; (b) describe the subject matter in detail; (c) clearly articulate condemnation and criticism of the subject behavior while including an opposing view; and (d) to discourage viewers from engaging in the subject behavior.#MorningWire #Podcast #JohnBickley #GeorgiaHowe #GlobalNews #News #Politics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Okay, first, before we give you the facts of the day, run hide fight infidels is streaming now only on Daily Wire. It's an ode to the great action movies of the 80s and 90s. There's even a love story which nobody expected. And you can support Daily Wire's mission to continue making movies that people actually want to watch. Go check it out. Tired of your car insurance rate going up even with a clean driving record, you're not alone. That's why there's Jerry, your proactive insurance assistant. Jerry compares rates side by side from over 50 top insurers and

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That was a clip from the new Daily Wire film Run, Hide, Fight, Infidels, an action thriller starring Jonathan Majors. It's about an ISIS terror group that takes over an American College campus. It's already generated a lot of buzz for its very unflinching portrayal of radical Islam and its convergence with the radical left. The director of the film Kyle Rankin joins us in studio to discuss the making of the film its charged subject matter and why he believes Americans are primed for films just like this. I'm Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley with Georgia Howl. This is a weekend edition of Morning Wire.

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Joining us now in studio is Kyle Rankin, director and writer of Run, Hyde Fight, Infidels. Great to have you in the studio. Excited to talk to you. Thanks for having me here. So we have both seen this film. We're excited about it. Our whole staff is buzzing about this. And really can't wait for the world to kind of see it.

And we wanted to ask you a bunch of questions sort of behind the scenes and also some stuff about thematics and even sort of fears about the movie. Yeah, please. First, you know, this is a sequel sort of to run Hyde Fight, which is one of our best performing films at Daily Wire. Yeah. Our first official film that we actually launch. And it's kind of not a sequel. It kind of is a sequel. What drew you to this approach to following up run-hide fight? Yeah, I never expected to make a sequel. And it was really Mike Richards, I believe, the CEO here, had what I heard, Mike was very smart about saying, let's do more of what's working. And the first run-hide fight is working very well. And so I got an initial call.

I think I zoomed with Dallas Sonier, my great producer, and Mike. And Mike had kind of a one-line idea, like, which I don't want to spoil, but it had to do with kind of this pro-Palestinian protest, basically being a gateway for real terrorists. I just spoiled it anyway. We've probably spoiled it already. Sorry about that. And I sparked to that. And he was like, and what I loved about working, making this movie for DW and for BW. and for band was a very long leash.

I was able to... I feel like if this were a Hollywood movie, I would have had to, you know, meetings upon meetings, I would have had to submit a rough outline, you know, a scriptment, a story meant all this. And instead, I was allowed to, you know, that's the one line.

I find it excited. Go write it. And it was great. And I'm not the fastest writer, so I took, you know, three months to go away and write it. And for me, I have to care about the characters. If I can care about the characters,

and there's lots of things I wanted to say in the movie. And I just need that time to find these, who are these people? Why do I care? I think that's a big problem with modern movies is you just don't care. And you turn it on, you're like... Or they make movies or TV series

where the lead character, you actually hate them. You actually don't like the lead. You know what I mean? So three months writing, I mean, that's actually, you say you're slow. That's pretty quick turnaround. a finished product. I was actually shocked. I mean, just to be honest, I was shocked at how fast we made this. Yes. When I heard the timeline of first announced, I thought, are we going to pull that off?

When was it announced? I mean, when was this decided? It was like the end of last year. Yeah, I first received the call. Yeah, September of last year. Okay, so last quarter of the last year. So it's exactly a year. Yep. And I also didn't, you know, when I heard the proposed timeline to do, to deliver a full feature, you know, soup to nuts, writing to the premiere within a year is very rare. And I didn't know if we could do it. But it was, but Dallas really, you know, my producer just kept in a good way cracking the whip. Like as soon, I think I handed in the script right around Christmas. And by January 5th, we were on the, we were flying to different colleges. We had to find kind of a, a defunct college, a college that had gone out of business, turns out about half dozen.

Half of them are. Yeah. Yeah. About a half dozen go out of business. in America every year. So we had plenty of issues from, and we found this wonderful one in Gaffney, South Carolina. Yeah, the location is great. So you guys had full access, total control of that campus. Yes. Which I'm sure helped speed up the process, too. Did it help that you and Dallas had worked together before? Without a doubt, yeah. We have a shorthand, and I think we kind of, we butt heads in a good way. I think we argue in a productive way. And yeah, he's coming from the practical money side as it should be. And I'm coming from the, you know, sometimes I'm more like, feelings don't care about your facts, but that's kind of my job to bring that. Yeah. Yeah.

Now, you mentioned that this is different from working in Hollywood. There's a lot of things that are different. The whole premise of this film is kind of a lightning rod. You touched on it. This is this pro-Palestinian protest that became a gateway for terrorism on campus. Are you, I mean, is that a risk for you to do a film like this? Or have you kind of already decided that you're going to take risks in your career and you're not so worried about that? Yeah, I think the latter. I'd much rather take risks and to don't, I think you get in trouble doing half measures. That's a great way to like not have a career. So I just think if I truly believe in it, I just want to go for it. And yeah, you know, we, the bad guys in this movie are, you know, are Islamic, Islam jihadist, you know, and it's kind

like, I think Hollywood is running out of, we're running out of made up bad guys and like guys, white guys with Eastern Bloc, where you can't tell what country they're from. It's like, Hollywood, if there's an action movie, it's always that. And it's like, eh, how about statistically we do what is much more common nowadays, unfortunately? So do you think there's anything changing in Hollywood where there might be an openness to do plots like this? Are things still the same as they were five years ago? Or do you think they're seeing that there's these outside, outfits that are competing with them and they're maybe willing to maybe work with those more. Yeah, maybe it is opening slightly. It seems, it's a lot slower than I kind of thought it would be.

I mean, you can even look at, what is it the, what's going on with Paramount and kind of, you know, with the Ellingson, is that his name or David? Ellison. Yeah. But like, and, you know, people, only because he might be right leaning, it's like, How dare you, you know? So the very, the Hollywood establishment is very, tends to be very liberal. And so they're kind of, I mean, Paramount might end up moving to Texas, you know, the same way like. Or maybe Nashville. I thought here, yeah.

Yes. And that would be so silly. There is, it's that kind of, I don't know, it's a, it'd be really stupid to kick Paramount out of, out of Hollywood, but they might end up doing it. So I do think it's, I hear privately all the time, you know, like, I kind of agree with you. I'm just so worried, you know, but I don't know. Does it make it challenging to recruit talent to work with you? Or is the Hollywood machine more forgiving of talent that's maybe gone astray with different companies? I think it can make, it can be challenging, not on the crew side, I find, thankfully, because maybe someone doesn't care, you know, who was a cinematographer or who recorded the sound. But I do think, you know, some of the actors get skittish. But at the same time, I'm so proud of this cast that we assembled.

So we just found the right people. And we were very honest, you know, David Guglimo, our casting director and all the, when he put out, you kind of do the breakdown, they call it. You tell actors that you're casting and casting directors. And it was, they were very clear. Like, hey, this could be seen as a political movie. Like, I mean, I think it's just a big fun action movie that could have been made in the 80s or 90s. Right. Yes.

And that's what it feels like. That's exactly. Yeah, you nailed it. So you've worked with some major stars. Jonathan Majors is a huge star. And that's one of the things, me watching this. I've always appreciated his work. I appreciate it even more when it's one of our projects.

Yes. But he is electrifying. What's it like? How different is it on the set when you've got somebody like him in the mix? Well, first of all, Jonathan was lovely. because they call it like, you know, taking the idea of being number one on the call sheet seriously. So someone like Jonathan took that seriously and was like, I set the tone. I'm going to befriend all these potentially unknown actors and young cast.

I'm going to be very cool with them and give them tips and eat with them. David Lucas, you know, who is, you know, known as a comedian also is in this movie. And he was very similar. He just gathered this young cast around him. He wanted to learn from them. So he had a lot of give and take, but it's not a lot different giving Jonathan direction for me compared to like giving it to the young cast because the young cast was so, we were kind of talking on that same emotional level. But yeah, was Jonathan impressive to watch? Yes.

And maybe I had to say less to him, yes. but, and that was a joy. But really, I love directing him and I love directing the rest of the cast, I guess I'm trying to say. How long did it take to film? We had, I always wish we had more time. I think we had 26 days. Wow. Could have used 35 maybe because it's ambitious.

There's a lot going on. It's a big ensemble picture, as you guys know. So I wish I had more time. So it felt like we were running and gunning and moving very quickly. but yeah, it was 26 days, Monday through Friday, with weekends off, which was very civilized. Sometimes you don't get that. Sometimes you get six-day weeks with only one day to kind of stumble around as a zombie,

and you're back into it. But, yeah, I'd like, I think it's the hardest. For me, it was the hardest movie I've ever made. Maybe I'm just getting older and it was rough, but it was just a lot to keep in my head and keep going. but I mean, I will go to the premiere tonight, and I'm incredibly excited for the world to see this movie. Yeah.

Yeah, me too. I mean, honestly, I'm really excited to share this with people, just being totally frank. Yeah. You know, part of it, I don't know if maybe this is false, but when a film is made with a sense of urgency, a lot of times you do feel it in the movie. Like, I do feel like this movie has an energy about it that's very good.

And maybe that plays some sort of role And then the editing process, how long was that? How difficult was that? How involved were you in that process? Very involved. Yeah, I'm there for every, every shot, the editing. And Jared Bentley was our editor. He was amazing. We got along great. It's funny, when you're, when you've written and directed a movie, the process accordion's out because you write, it was just me and my kind of brilliant wife. I'd show her pages, does this any good, you know, in the beginning? And then you become a circus of like a hundred, souls, you know, all just being crazy together for six weeks. And then it goes down to just me and Jared editing together in a room. And then Dallas really came in for the last kind of two weeks and kind of, I thought I had a great cut.

And it was wonderful. That's where Dallas is a great producer because we kind of stress test. Do you need this scene? Yes, I need that scene. You know, I would get very indignant. And he'd be like, yeah, are you sure? And we'd kind of go through it and tweak. And sometimes we would shave out one word or one phrase, but it's better, you know.

So that was, yeah, it was great. It was about three and a half months to four months post, I think. What was the budget? I think we're, I was told that we were around $6 million. It's good. Sometimes as a creative, you don't want to see the budget. That way you can just complain about it. And you can't get this crane another week.

I mean, because there was like the whole carnivals. Yeah. You know, I mean, there were a lot of large aspects to the set and even just the background. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of that was, you know, Dallas and his kind of cadre of producers, they were very good. That was just one guy who does, you know, local kind of carnival circuses, and he had all that machinery. And since it was early spring, we kind of were, we just made it under the wire where he didn't have a bunch of jobs coming up.

So he was like, yeah, I'll bring all my equipment to this little parking lot. It was kind of perfect. So there were many, many happy accidents along the way. There's lots of practical effects in this movie. Yeah. Do you enjoy making action films? Very much, yeah. Yeah, there's a kind of a clockmaker, watchmaker aspect to, oh, when that explodes, he falls back and hits him. I love the, I guess, the Rube Goldberg of it all, of some of the action set pieces. I really like that stuff a lot. And especially if you can give it kind of an emotional feeling as well. Yeah, so emotionally speaking, you say you need to really feel emotionally connected with the lead characters. what are some of the emotional through lines for you in this film?

Of the characters? Of the characters, yeah. I guess, yeah, giving, it was important to me, if I'm going to do an ensemble picture, I didn't want just some, I wanted to limit the amount of like, throw away, that's just, she comes in for one line.

I tried to give an arc, I guess you would say, to each person, kind of meeting them, maybe there's a desire, there's a struggle, and then there's kind of a, some kind of denouement or a wrap-up to,

I guess it was important to me, especially with the young kids, the college kids who are fighting back, that they would each grow as people. They would, the first run-hide fight to me was very, what can I do? What can I do to keep my community safe or my school safe if, God forbid, there's a school shooter? And this to me was a very, what can we do as Americans and as people together and as friends and as a group? What can we do to save our country and protect our country and protect. our campus in this case. Now, with an ensemble cast and with all these simultaneous stories going on, I can imagine that it's a lot of actual just organization behind the screen,

behind the scenes to plan out how you're going to shoot this scene that has elements that maybe tie in with all these different, I mean, how do you even organize the order in which you shoot things when you have all these different storylines that will converge on certain points, but they each independently have their own story. Yeah, hopefully you understood that question. Yeah. Well, I guess that is where the screenwriting,

starts with the screenwriting, where you're like, as a document, you should read that through and you should get all the same feels. And like it, so that becomes the blueprint and the map. And then in pre-production, they call it kind of that time before the actors show up where we're at this college.

I would walk around daily with Chris Kimlin, who shot the movie. He was amazing. And I would describe the scenes and he would be like, oh, we could start here and kind of push in. And so he brought all these ideas of how to shoot. I brought my ideas how to shoot. We would come up with, we'd sometimes write a shot list. We would sometimes, we had some production assistants that were like, we basically almost did living storyboards, which were just photographs.

But it allowed Chris to like try out different lenses and, oh, yeah, if that's here and here. And so sometimes we had kind of, it was a very basic way to kind of pre-visualize it all, the shooting of it. And then as a director, sometimes you get thrown the schedule. It's never, you wish you could shoot things in sequence because then you can, then it's easy to, it's easier to work with everyone's arcs. Sure, yeah. But what happens is actor availability, location availability, weather, everything gets screwed up. So I've had several movies where I shoot the action climax at the beginning. which luckily I didn't need to do fully on this movie.

And that's the job of the assistant director, which is a whole, it's kind of a misnomer. He's not my, they're not my assistant. They are, but the assistant director comes up with the schedule and they kind of run the whole set. They make sure, hey, we need that actress. Is she out of makeup yet? She should be traveling to set because we're coming up on her shot.

You know, so that's what the assistant director does. But, yeah, a lot of, a lot of pre-planning. And when you're in production, you're shooting that day. You're not getting a lot of sleep because then after rap, you're talking about the next day and you're planning all that out. So it sounds like you had to be really flexible, though, because of the crunch timeline. Yeah. To be able to move things around is pretty organic in terms of your shot list and everything. Yeah, and it is the emotion of it, those arcs that I mentioned, that is the job of the director to keep all that in your head.

Because that's a lot of what a director does is tell an actor shows up on set and maybe they haven't worked in a week and they're still eating their breakfast in front of you. And you're like, okay, remember, you're at the top of the shot when you enter the room, you're coming from that big speech that just, oh, right, right, right. You're constantly reminding everyone of what is happening in the world of the movie in this moment. That's a big job of directing. For the audience, what is your hope that they take away from the film? big picture, what do you hope they walk out of the film thinking? First and foremost, I hope they are entertained. I hope they forget their troubles for two hours.

That's really my number one job. And then secondly, there's just lots of things in there that I think that I love about movies that Hollywood hasn't been doing lately. I don't know why. So maybe if someone is right of center or conservative, or Republican, I want them to, they're not going to just see, nothing crazy and woke is going to pull them out of it. Like, ugh. At the same time, I think the movie forces you to hear some of that from a different perspective, but then, you know, it plays with it a bit. But I don't know. It's just,

it's crazy to me that, you know, in the 90s, I would have just said that I was a liberal, but now the line shifts shifted under all of us. And now I'm a, I'm Lenny Riefenstall or something. I'm just a not be a filmmaker. This might be too on the nose political. One of our members asked specifically, you know, particularly with, from the Democratic side of the aisle, there's, the potential for blowback against this film is high because of the nature. We just saw this with 9-11 and the, the actual controversies around some of the celebrations in New York. And how much does that worry you or do you see that actually as part of the purpose here to challenge people's perspectives. I mean, sure. I would love for people just to watch the film for its own, I think it's

objectively a good movie. The same way I felt about the first run, I'd fight. I'm like, but I really like this, I just think it's a good movie. And all the critics went after it for like, it's a good person with a gun fighting back against bad people with the gun. I'm like, yeah, isn't that also just an action movie? And we did it, you know, how dare you use for the first one, the school shooting victims to make entertainment where at the same time, you know, a member of our cast got an email from, you know, a woman whose son had been in Columbine, a thank you for making that, you know, so you can't, who, I don't know, it's funny, I don't read good or bad things about my movie. I just make the movies that I believe in. And I hope as many people watch them as possible

and enjoy them. Well, I hope you are satisfied and very happy with the things. film you made. We certainly are. Thanks so much. We appreciate you so much joining us in studio, and we're excited for the world to see this movie. Same. Thanks for having me. That was Kyle Rankin, director and writer of Run Hide Fight Infidels, and this has been a weekend episode of Morning Wire.